Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an apparatus including holding means for holding a workpiece, action means for applying action to the workpiece, and moving means for moving the holding means and the action means relative to each other.
Description of the Related Art
A wafer having a plurality of devices such as integrated circuits (ICs), large scale integrations (LSIs), or the like formed on the top surface of the wafer in a state of being demarcated by planned dividing lines is formed to a predetermined thickness by grinding the undersurface of the wafer by a grinding apparatus (see for example Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2001-284303), and is thereafter divided into individual device chips by a dicing apparatus (see for example Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2000-061804) or a laser processing apparatus (see for example Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-088053). The divided device chips are used in electric apparatuses such as mobile telephones, personal computers, or the like.
The dicing apparatus, for example, is constituted mainly of a chuck table as holding means for holding a wafer at a time of cutting processing, cutting means including a rotatable cutting blade that cuts the wafer held on the chuck table, processing feeding means for processing-feeding the chuck table and the cutting means relative to each other, indexing feeding means for indexing-feeding the chuck table and the cutting means relative to each other, a cassette table on which a cassette housing a plurality of wafers is mounted, carrying-out means for carrying out a wafer from the cassette to a temporary placement table, a transporting mechanism that transports the wafer temporarily placed on the temporary placement table to the chuck table, alignment means for imaging the wafer held on the chuck table and detecting a region to be cut, and cleaning means for cleaning the wafer already cut. The dicing apparatus can divide the wafer into individual device chips with high accuracy.